Wall Street continued its winning streak on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising above the 8,000 mark for a time, for the first time since February. This was also the DJIA's highest close in nearly two months.

The number of people filing new jobless claims jumped unexpectedly to the highest level in 26 years, while at the same time the number of those continuing to receive benefits hit a 10th straight record-high.

Since January Hyundai has let buyers return new cars if they get laid off within a year. Now, you can't return your house in this case, but this outfit will pay up to six months of your mortgage if you are laid off in the first year.

Speaking in Brasília at a joint press conference with U.K. prime minister Gordon Brown, Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blamed the global economic crisis on white people.

A friend of mine tuned me into this site, saying it was featured on the Early Show today. A little research and I discovered that missingmoney.com was also highlighted last year on MSNBC.com. It purports to help you search for funds you may have forgotten about.

The recession and its toll can be seen every time new unemployment figures come out. And a new game by Tiltfactor's Layoff: The Game, which lets you save companies untold billions by laying off sets of workers.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested that the current recession should come to an end this year and a recovery will begin early next year, according to an interview he did with 60 Minutes.

The current economic recession has forced most organizations to make do with fewer hands and resources.

The U.S. Attorney's office suggested in a brief court filing on Friday that Bernie Madoff is ready to waive a formal grand jury review (an indictment). Usually that sort of language is used when a plea deal is close.

Mortgage default rates rose in 2006-7, leading to ongoing foreclosures. In early 2008, Bank of America acquired mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corporation, whose predatory lending practices drew outrage in the housing bubble. While certainly not the only lending institution to suffer scrutiny or ill-repute, many blame them publicly for the ensuing economic crisis.

General Motors, which has already borrowed $13.4 billion from the federal government and is seeking billions more, announced on Thursday that its independent auditors have noted that the company's survival is in “substantial doubt.”

While the United States' economy seems to get worse, and worse, and worse seemingly every day, China has stated that it feels its own economy has begun recovering.